The iPad's "mini me" has started production as Apple attempts to ward off competition with a smaller, cheaper tablet.

Apple's Asian component suppliers have kick-started mass production of the new iPad, nicknamed iPad Mini. The new tablet will measure 7.85 inches diagonally, putting it more in line with the other 7-inch tablets crowding the market.

Apple's iPad is the king of tablets and eats up a majority of the tablet market share. However, the 9.7-inch display and a load of features like 4G LTE connectivity and a Retina display with 2048x1536 resolution makes the iPad a tad expensive. In fact, the new iPad starts at $499.

Cheaper and credible alternatives to the iPad have emerged recently, offering the iPad a bit of competition. Amazon's Kindle Fire, which is a 7-inch tablet for $199 that was released last November, was the first to take a chunk of the iPad's market share last holiday season.

Other tech companies have since followed suit, offering smaller and cheaper alternatives. Google recently launched its 7-inch Nexus 7 tablet for $199, which is not only smaller and cheaper than the iPad, but also has features more comparable to the iPads'. Amazon also kicked its Kindle Fire line up a notch by launching the Kindle Fire HD models. The Kindle Fire HD line offers a refreshed 7-inch model for $199, an 8.9-inch model for $299, and a 4G LTE model for $499. What's more is that Amazon is offering a generous data package for only $49.99 per year.

As if that wasn't enough, Barnes & Noble recently announced its updated Nook tablets, Nook HD and HD+.

Clearly, Apple needs to jump into this market if it wants to hold onto its No.1 spot. Not many details are known about the iPad Mini, such as price, but it has been confirmed that it won't have the Retina display that the new iPad has. This was likely an eliminated feature in order to keep the iPad Mini competitively priced.

Apple is expected to announce the iPad Mini sometime this month, according to AllThingsD.

i have used in the past year an ipad2, a lenovo K1 (10 inch android), and i now have a nexus 7.

of these, the only one i kept is the nexus 7, because it's form factor alows me to put it in my jacket. the other two have to be carried around like a small laptop, which sucks even more when you also have an MBA. i believe the nexus 7 form factor is just perfect, although a bit less bezel and a bit more screen would be welcome.

at this point, we do not know anything for sure about the ipad mini (ipad nano? or would that be just an ipod touch?).it would be nice to have a 7.8 inch screen in a nexus-sized package, but 1024x768 is a pathetic resolution. the nexus has 1280x800, and given that this is a media device, i don't see how they could not be thinking of giving it an HD screen.

but this is apple, and they're all about app store stuff, and you'll notice that they've tried to make it as easy as possible for app developers when they went from the ipad 3 to the ipad 3: they simply quadrupled the resolution, instead of just going to 1920x1080. this makes it easier for app makers to adapt their software to the new screen. if the ipad mini introduced a new res, app devs would cry foul; so this makes sense from a "we want all our apps to work perfectly on it from day 1" perspective.

and apple marketing will tell consumers that res isn't important at all, unless of course you're buying an ipad 3 or a retina macbook.

but deficiencies or not, this thing will still sell tons, even at $299. apple's mobile products kinda remind me of the kate middleton nude pics: she's really not that pretty and doesn't have much to show off anyway, but that hasn't stopped millions from googling them.

There was an argument by one of the users on MacRumors a few months ago. It went along the lines of...

"Why does Apple not use the aspect ratio of 16:9 on its Macbook Pros? Everyone else does it!"

... and his arguments were that he highly disliked watching movies and Blu-Ray rips with black bars on the top and bottom.

Other posters pointed out to him that, with a 16:10 display (very rare even amongst high-end notebook vendors nowadays), you can fit more editing controls on the screen and yet have room for the content itself. Also 16:9 movies are actually shrunken and cropped from true letterbox format , which is closer to 21:9 (i.e. Toshiba U845W's super-wide, 1792 x 768 display) than 16:9.

OP wouldn't buy any of those hard facts and insisted he wanted 1080p. The irony was he's a content creator - as a consumer I understand why 16:9 and 1080p are so popular as they stand, but that guy was making the case of "I want less display real estate to create stuff".

On topic... a smaller iPad with 1024 x 768 and no LTE? I'd have to be drugged and high on Krokodil to buy one of these.

i know what you mean, and one way or the other stuff is cut off either way. but widescreen formats have become the norm for movies, so it is a bit dumb of apple not to support that. on the macbooks that's OK, they are used for content creation; but the ipads are used for content consuming.

On the topic of ratio, do people not use multi monitor set-ups to do things like video editing? I'm not trying to be awkward but I do app development and my progression over many years has been from a 17" 4:3 to a 17" 4:3 & 19" 16:9 then 2x19" 16:9. I don't get why you would want/need controls on the same screen. maybe if you need mobility? and I understand that you were referring to the MBP I just presumed it could do multiple monitors.

16:9 on something designed to be landscape, things like computer monitors and tablets, isn't as ideal as something taller like 16:10 or 4:3. Vertical space is important in those cases.

To me 16:9 doesn't make sense unless you get huge, things like 27" 2560x1440 monitors. It works there since they have so much vertical room. Applications and web pages benefit from more vertical space since so much UI and information is presented in vertical columns.

Narrower aspect ratios like 16:9 aren't so great for apps on 12"-15" laptop screens, and they certainly aren't good for little 10" and 7" tablet screens.

humm. Within the tablet space a 16:9 would have more vertical space as you are free to turn it. Phones are mostly used in portrait and 16:9 in my opinion works well there.

on the desktop what you say is true but due to me not needing wide colour gaumut or ultra high rez I am presented with cheaper 16:9 displays than 4:3 so for the same price I get a monitor that is just as tall but is a fair bit wider... you have made me want a monitor that swivels to portrait now as it would be nicer to code on.

Yeah, phones in portrait mode work fine in 16:9. Tablets do get used in landscape quite a lot though, which is why something with more vertical room in the landscape orientation is good. 16:9 on a 10" or 7" screen works well for watching movies but it really isn't that great for web browsing or applications.